SugarFree: Foster Care Cognitive Dissonance

Media Invited to Attend Preview Performance

Overview:
Throughout June, a one-woman play will shine a spotlight on the unique and life-limiting struggles that foster youth face when transitioning out of foster care. And who better to tell the story than someone who has lived it and now advocates for these young adults. Shari Walker is the writer, producer and actress of SugarFree: Foster Care Cognitive Dissonance, which will be performed on five dates in June. Walker overcame homelessness, domestic violence and lack of guidance and support to beat the staggering odds that work against youth when leaving the system.

Walker, who is now 28, now holds her Bachelor’s in Pan African American Social Science and is pursuing her Master’s of Social Work. She is active in a number of non-profit initiatives focused on improving foster care, including Foster Nation and The National Foster Youth Institute led by U.S. Rep. Karen Bass, and received the 2019 Hollywood Fringe Diversity Scholarshi

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
DATE: April 26, 2019
FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT:
Shari Walker, 323.548.1040 or [email protected]

LOS ANGELES, CA – - – Shari Walker knows firsthand how staggering the challenges are for youth aging out of the foster care system. At age 18 – after four years in foster care – she was left to fend for herself and soon found out how ill-equipped she was for navigating an independent adult life.

She’s not alone. Consider these statistics for emancipated foster youth: 71 percent of females will be pregnant by age 21; one in five will be homeless after age 18; less than three percent will earn a college degree; and only half with be employed by age 24.

Walker refused to be one of the numbers – but the path was not without trauma. She overcame homelessness, domestic violence and lack of guidance to beat the odds that work against youth when leaving the system. And she has been advocating for transition age foster youth ever since.

She holds